


Growth Spurt

by moodiful819



Series: Generation Swap I [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Banter, F/M, Generation Swap, Romance, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-16
Updated: 2015-02-16
Packaged: 2018-03-13 04:37:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3368132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moodiful819/pseuds/moodiful819
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kakashi is growing up, and Sakura doesn’t know how she’s going to handle it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Growth Spurt

Growth spurts were unnerving. 

Sakura had no right to talk, of course. She was a medic-nin. She had gone through puberty and had done “the talk” forwards, backwards, sideways, all ways; it was how people grew. It was the natural course of life, and she had been there to see Naruto, Sai, and Sasuke through their spurts of height and muscle. Haruno Sakura knew growth spurts…

But Kakashi’s growth spurts were on a whole other level.

Looking up, Sakura couldn’t help the slight twitch of her brow as she took in the young man’s new height. She had only been gone a week, but it seemed as if he’d grown a full head taller than when she’d seen him last. In the back of her head, she cursed the gods for the paltry sum of her growth spurts. She was thirty-one, and only barely reached the underside of his nose in heels.

"Something wrong, Haruno-san?" he asked in a low rumble—another effect of his entering puberty. On his masked lips lay a familiar irksome smile that betrayed his concerned tone. He knew exactly what was wrong, and did not bother smothering the gloating triumph in his eyes.

"You look like a tree," she said snappishly, frustrated that he was lording his height over her, and annoyed that she was stooping to insults to deal with it. (That was something Naruto would do. She was an adult.  _An adult!_ )

"Well, that can’t be helped, given Konoha’s standard uniform color. But with my hair color, I hope I look like a fetching winter pine," he said, dusting his hair for emphasis.

Abruptly, he dropped down and crouched on the edge of the planter box by the road.

"Or perhaps you would prefer a bush or hedge?" he asked looking up at her, and she was suddenly conscious of his curved back, the length of his limbs, and the impish look that he shot her from his curled position. Quietly, almost mournfully, he added, "It’s not my fault you’re so short."

His smile peeked at her from behind his elbow, a wistful lop-sided grin that she knew in her sleep. It was familiar.  _This was familiar,_  and the memory of every instance he had stooped and shrunk himself in her presence—every time he tried to close the ever-growing gap between them—hit her with the impact of an explosive tag, knocking the wind out of her and stalling her tongue.

Kakashi met her silence with a quirk of his lip, and she watched the sadness in his smile leak into his eyes when she continued to remain that way.

Cautiously, carefully, he pieced the mask of his pride back in place. “I guess I’ll see you around, sensei.”

Picking himself up, he turned to go, only to feel a petite hand holding him back.

"You can’t leave. Not yet," she said, firmly holding his gaze. He seemed surprised, and she wondered if her gaze looked as bright and burning to him as it felt to her.

Sakura tightened her grip on his shirt. “You know I—that I…I can’t help that I’m short, right?!” It wasn’t what she had wanted to say—not by a long shot—in fact, it was downright lame—but it was better than having him walk away feeling dejected.

_Because she could never reject him, not by a long shot, and only an idiot could think that she would…_

But they were both idiots when they were together. Haplessly and hopelessly so.

Still, even an idiot can get things right sometimes, and the fond look that eclipsed Kakashi’s face told her that he had understood her loud and clear, and did not fight when she tugged him down to her level, even as his back cried out in protest.

Burying her hand in his hair, she ran her fingers through the thick tangle of locks and admired the view. Silver steel-grey as the sky on a snowy day.

"Don’t grow up too fast," she warned him, eyeing him sternly as he straightened himself up again.

His response was the gentle slide of his hand from where he had braced himself on her forearm to her jaw. Her astonishment paralyzed her—  _he had never done something like this before_ —and the surprise—the anticipation of what would happen next as every centimeter was crossed pinged nervous sizzling sparks from her head to her toes. Suddenly she was hyper-aware of the ends of her wind-swept hair, her burning cheeks, the swell of her lip… For the first time since she was an Academy girl, she felt her knees quake, and prayed she wouldn’t embarrass herself by fainting.  ** _He was too young to be looking at her with those eyes…_**

When his fingers stopped at last to catch her chin, she felt every swallow knock against her heart, charcoal night against emerald green.

"If I don’t, how will I ever catch up then?"

And then, he was gone in a swirl of leaves and wind, leaving Sakura behind with her throbbing heart. Gently, she raised her trembling fingers to her lips and wondered how he had managed to make her feel as if she had been kissed without ever touching her there.

Aching, shaken, she felt her knees give up their valiant struggle and let herself collapse next to the planter box at last, thankful that no one could see her like this in the abandoned road. 

Gingerly raising her fingers to her mouth once more, she felt the blood rush to her cheeks and stifled a quiet moan before dropping her face into her knees.

If this was Kakashi at 17, she didn’t know how she would be able to handle him when he grew up.


End file.
